Reflections

I found the Speaking of Faith interview, featuring Father George Coyne and Brother Guy Consolmagno, to be quite fascinating. Their view about correlating their faith with their profession was particularly fascinating, especially since they are Jesuit Astronomers from the Vatican.

One of my favorite quotes of the interview was when Father George explained, “Doing science, to me, is the search for God and I will never have the final answers because the universe participates in the mystery of God”. It was such a profound statement that I had to take a moment and ponder on it. As the interview progressed, I had a much clearer understanding of what Brother Guy had meant, especially when he said, “Our understanding of the universe is always incomplete and our understanding of God is always incomplete”. His statement made me realize that no matter what we pursue in our lives, we will never completely comprehend it and that there will always be more for us to learn. That concept follows the same notion that we will never completely understand God; for it takes true faith to believe when we cannot possibly understand all of God’s intentions for us.

Toward the end of the interview, Brother Guy made an assertion that I believe rings true for faith, love, and all human endeavors; “The more you know, the more you realize you don’t know”. And yet, it is human nature to try and discover as much as we can in order to answer the unknown. God made our beautiful planet and everything inside of it, leaving a mystery that can never truly be solved. Our faith in God mirrors the same idea. We can never fully understand God, but many of us will venture to do so. Even as we uncover new scientific information about the earth, our faith in God remains steady; it just brings on new questions for us to try and answer.